Judgements to Be Made on Tuanzebe, Phillips and Chaplin, Muric Looks Set For Surgery
Monday, 31st Mar 2025 14:32
Axel Tuanzebe and Conor Chaplin have returned to training and could have some involvement this week, while Kalvin Phillips is on the way back from needing 20-plus stitches in his foot, other unnamed players are being assessed ahead of Wednesday’s game at AFC Bournemouth and Aro Muric looks set for shoulder surgery.
Chaplin has been out since the turn of the year with a knee injury but is now back in training with Tuanzebe having been out with a hamstring problem and also having undergone thumb surgery. “Conor's trained with a group over the last week, so that's a positive,” manager Kieran McKenna said. “So he's not going to be too far away from this week.
“We've got a few in and around it that are going to be pretty close decisions for this week, to be honest.
“Axel Tuanzebe’s done a little bit of training now with a group, which is a positive, but we have to make judgments on this week. “Kalvin Phillips went off with a gash in his foot, which needed 20-plus stitches, a pretty serious gash in the Nottingham Forest game, so he hasn't been training with us, but he isn't too far away now.
“So we've got some judgments to make and there's a few others in that boat as well.
“We're assessing people over the next sort of 24 hours to see who's going to be available for the first game. And if anyone doesn't make the first game, then there'll be a possibility they'll be available for the second.”
Someone who won’t be involved is keeper Aro Muric, who suffered an injury while away with Kosovo having put in a man of the match display in their 2-1 Nations League play-off first leg victory over Iceland.
“Aro’s seeing a specialist, he’s looking at a shoulder surgery very possibly on an injury to his labrum in his shoulder,” McKenna said.
“Very unfortunate to him, different shoulder than he has been having some treatment on over the couple of weeks beforehand, it’s completely unrelated to that, so very unfortunate.
“If he has the surgery this week, then that will certainly be a good period of months.”
Quizzed on whether everyone else on international duty came back OK, McKenna added: “We have one or two that are still being assessed, so we have one or two doubts going into Wednesday night that we’ll have to update on by Wednesday.”
_Photo: Matchday Images_
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